Page images
PDF
EPUB

See! fportive fate, to punish aukward pride,
Bids Bubo build, and fends him fuch a Guide: 20
A standing fermon, at each year's expence,
That never Coxcomb reach'd Magnificence!

You show us, Rome was glorious, not profufe,
And pompous buildings once were things of Use.
Yet fhall (my Lord) your juft, your noble rules 25
Fill half the land with Imitating-Fools;
Who random drawings from your sheets fhall take,
And of one beauty many blunders make;

VARIATIONS.

After 22. in the MS.

Muft Bishops, Lawyers, Statefmen, have the skill
To build, to plant, judge paintings, what you will?
Then why not Kent as well our treaties draw,
Bridgman explain the Gofpel, Gibs the Law?

NOTES.

VER. 19. See! fportive fate, to punish aukwardpride,] Pride is one of the greatest mischiefs, as well as abfurdities of our nature; and therefore, as appears both from profane and facred Hiftory, has ever been the more peculiar object of divine vengeance. But aukward Pride intimates fuch abilities in its owner, as eases us of the apprehenfion of much mischief from it; fo that the poet fuppofes fuch a one fecure from the ferious resentment of Heaven, though it may permit fate or fortune to bring him into the public contempt and ridicule, which his native badness of heart fo well deferves.

VER. 23. The Earl of Burlington was then publishing the Defigns of Inigo Jones, and the Antiquities of Rome by Palladio. P.

VER. 28. And of one beauty many blunders make ;] Becaufe

Load fome vain Church with old Theatric ftate, Turn Arcs of triumph to a Garden-gate;

NOTES.

30

the road to Taste, like that to Truth, is but one; and those to Error and Abfurdity a thousand.

VER. 29. Load fome vain Church with old Theatric ftate,] In which there is a complication of abfurdities, arifing both from their different natures and forms: For the one being for religious fervice, and the other only for civil amufement, it is impoffible that the profufe and lascivious ornaments of the latter fhould become the modefty and fanctity of the other. Nor will any examples of this vanity of drefs in the facred buildings of antiquity juftify this imitation; for thofe ornaments might be very fuitable to a Temple of Bacchus, or Venus, which would ill become the fobriety and purity of the prefent Religion.

Befides, it should be confidered, that the ufual form of a Theatre would only permit the architectonic ornaments to be placed of the outward face; whereas thofe of a Church may be as commodioufly, and are more properly put within; particularly in great and clofe pent-up Cities, where the inceffant driving of the fmoke, in a little time corrodes and destroys all outward ornaments of this kind; efpecially if the members, as is the common tafte, be fmall and little.

Our Gothic ancestors had jufter and manlier notions than thefe modern mimics of Greek and Roman magnificence: which, because the thing does honour to their genius, I fhall endeavour to explain. All our ancient churches are called, without diftinction, Gothic; but erroneoufly. They are of two forts; the one built in the Saxon times; the other during our Norman race of kings. Several Cathedral and Collegiate Churches of the firft fort are yet remaining, either in whole or in part; of which this was the Original: When the Saxon kings became chriftian, their piety, (which was the piety of the times) confifted in building Churches at home, and performing pilgrimages to the Holy Land: and these spiritual exercifes affifted and fupported one another. For the most venerable as well as moft elegant models of religious edifices were then in Paleftine. From these our Saxon Builders took the whole of their ideas, as may be feen by comparing the

Reverse your Ornaments, and hang them all On fome patch'd dog-hole ek'd with ends of wall;

NOTES.

drawings which travellers have given us of the churches yet ftanding in that country, with the Saxon remains of what we find at home; and particularly in that famenefs of ftyle in the later religious edifices of the Knights Templars profeffedly built upon the model of the church of the holy Sepulchre at Jerufalem) with the earlier remains of our Saxon Edifices. Now the architecture of the Holy Land was entirely Grecian, but greatly fallen from its ancient elegance. Our Saxon performance was indeed a bad copy of it, and as much inferior to the works of St. Helene, as her's were to the Grecian models she had followed: Yet ftill the footsteps of ancient art appeared in the circular arches, the entire columns, the divifion of the entablature, into a fort of Architrave, Frize and Corniche, and a folidity equally diffused over the whole mafs. This, by way of diftinction, I would call the SAXON Architecture.

But our Norman works had a very different original. When the Goths had conquered Spain, and the genial warmth of the climate, and the religion of the old Inhabitants, had ripened their wits, and inflamed their mistaken piety (both kept in exercife by the neighbourhood of the Saracens, thro' emulation of their science and averfion to their fuperftition,) they struck out a new fpecies of Architecture unknown to Greece and Rome; upon original principles, and ideas much nobler than what had given birth even to claffical magnificence. For having been accuftomed, during the gloom of paganism, to worship the Deity in GROVES (a practice common to all nations) When their new Religion required covered edifices, they ingeniously projected to make them refemble Groves, as nearly as the diftance of Architecture would permit; at once indulging their old prejudices, and providing for their prefent conveniencies, by a cool receptacle in a fultry climate. And with what art and fuccefs they executed the project appears from hence, That no attentive observer ever viewed a regular Avenue of well grown trees intermixing their branches over head, but it presently put him in mind of the long Visto thro' a Gothic Cathedral; or ever entered one of the larger and more

Then clap four flices of Pilafter on't,

That, lac'd with bits of ruftic, makes a Front.

NOTES.

elegant Edifices of this kind, but it represented to his imagination an Avenue of trees. And this alone is what can be truly called the GOTHIC ftyle of Building.

Under this idea of fo extraordinary a fpecies of Architecture, all the irregular tranfgreffions against art, all the monstrous offences against nature, disappear; every thing has its reason, every thing is in order, and an harmonious Whole arifes from the ftudious application of means proper and proportioned to the end. For could the Arches be otherwife than pointed when the Workman was to imitate that curve which branches make by their interfection with one another? Or could the Columns be otherwife than split into diftinét shafts, when they were to represent the Stems of a group of Trees? On the fame principle was formed the fpreading ramification of the ftone-work in the windows, and the stained glass in the interstices; the one being to reprefent the branches, and the other the leaves of an opening Grove; and both concurring to preferve that gloomy light infpiring religious horror. Laftly, we fee the reafon of their ftudied averfion to apparent folidity in these ftupendous maffes, deemed fo abfurd by men accustomed to the apparent as well as real strength of Grecian Architecture. Had it been only a wanton exercise of the Artist's skill, to fhew he could give real ftrength without the appearance of any, we might indeed admire his fuperior fcience, but we muft needs condemn his ill judgment. But when one confiders, that this furprizing lightnefs was neceflary to complete the execution of his idea of a rural place of worship, one cannot sufficiently admire the ingenuity of the contrivance.

This too will account for the contrary qualities in what I call the Saxon Architecture. Thefe artists copied, as has been faid, from the churches in the holy Land, which were built on the models of Grecian architecture; but corrupted by prevailing barbarifm; and ftill further depraved by a religious idea. The first places of Chriftian worship were Sepulchres and fubterraneous caverns, from neceffity, low and heavy. When Christianity became the Religion of the State, and fumptuous

[ocr errors]

Shall call the winds thro' long arcades to roar, 35 Proud to catch cold at a Venetian door

[ocr errors]

Conscious they act a true Palladian part,

And if they starve, they starve by rules of art.

Oft have hinted to your you

brother Peer,

A certain truth, which many buy too dear: 40

COMMENTARY.

VER. 39. Oft have you hinted to your brother Peer,
A certain truth,-]

and in this artful manner begins the body of the Epistle.

I.

The first part of it (from 38 to 99) delivers rules for attaining to the MAGNIFICENT in juft expence; which is the

NOTES.

Temples began to be erected, they yet, in regard to the firft pious ages, preferved the maffive Style: made ftill more venerable by the Church of the holy Sepulchre: Where, this Style was, on a double account, followed and aggravated.

Such then was GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE. And it would be no difcredit to the warmest admirers of Jones and Palladio to acknowledge it has its merit. They must at least confess it had a nobler birth, tho' an humbler fortune, than the GREEK and ROMAN ARCHITECTURE.

VER. 30. Turns Arcs of triumph to a Garden-gate; ] This abfurdity seems to have arisen from an injudicious imitation of what these Builders might have heard of, at the entrance of the antient Gardens of Rome: But they don't confider, that those were public Gardens, given to the people by fome great man after a triumph; to which, therefore, Arcs of this kind were very fuitable ornaments.

VER. 36. Proud to catch cold at a Venetian door; ] In the foregoing inftances, the poet exposes the abfurd imitation of

« EelmineJätka »